Xbox owners - I've had an idea...

[Seabear]

Gamerscore modding, the massive disparity in the difficulty of achievements... I can only assume that the achievements themselves would be massively scaled up in difficulty.

Some bonus avatar stuff for reaching milestones would be nice, like how you sometimes unlock avatar awards in games... But to replace currency? Not a chance. Not because MS is "greedy" or any of that crap, it's just too flimsy a system, no standardisation, and why should the casual gamers who can't clear CoD on Veteran have less access to this form of locked[1] currency?


[1] -By "locked" I mean that achievements are "one time only" things. You can unlock all the CoD points/Reach credits you like by replaying, but you only get one lot of GS from an achievement, some of which are nigh impossible to get for some people (due to difficulty, or glitch, I'm looking at you CoD4 intel ¬__¬ )

 

[StBishop]

I already work for my money

I don't want to have to start sifting through shitty games to make money to buy dlc.

The one idea of merit out of it was avatar awards. I wouldn't mind seeing a gs threshold for items. However they would be items specifically made for it. Like 10,000 gs get a hat, 15000 get a shirt etc.

This already happens to an extent. Avatar awards.
Meed certain requirements in game = free avatar items.

 

[starwarsgeek]

If they want to improve their system at the expense of profit, they could just dump the whole point system and simply charge us actual money for downloads.

 

[Amos the famous]

Yes it would be an awesome idea.
However there are a proportion of gamers who try and get as much gamer-score as possible. This decreases the individual value of each GS point.
If this change were to occur, some games would market really easy achievements. Pressing the "start" button on some Simpsons game from yesteryear go you 5gs. This would also decrease the individual value of each GS point.
This in turn would make a viscous cycle in which people try to get the GS from games that market the easy achievements and the value would drop and drop until it just became rupies.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

I've got a better idea for the XBOX owners, get your local city hacker team to get into the console mainframe so that you guys get free games too afterwards! unless Microsoft is too greedy...

XD

 

[jack583]

good idea
but then microsoft would loose money that way.

i suggest this: people with gold membership could use their score to get discounts, while free members--like myself--have to pay full price

 

[James Scott]

What if, for the next console generation, Microsoft got rid of MS points and let us use Gamerscore as currency?

The problems I have with the current system are twofold:

- I think that it is unfair that we should have to pay for downloads AND for a full Xbox Live membership, when on the PS3 you only have to pay for downloads.

- Although it is satisfying to get achievements, the Gamerscore that comes with them doesn't really serve any useful purpose.

Nope, never ever ever gonna happen.

The Problems I have with your system are threefold:

- What about modders? Free stuff for them?

-Microsoft is going to give you free money for playing a game. Never gonna happen.

-Oh why dont I just get a bunch of 3 year old games for kids? Easy money.(all full price games must have atleat 1k gamerscore.Arcade games must have 200.)

 

[legend forge]

You do realize that all the games on the XBLA are not made by Microsoft right? Your idea would mean one of two things: either Microsoft has to pay them for every download which would get insanely expensive as achievement hunters would go nuts with this, or the devs wouldn't get paid at all. Who is going to make software for a platform they can't make any money on? Hobbyists sure but then we just have Newgrounds where you have to work to play any given game.

Also: Microsoft doesn't make money off the Xbox itself. Most of the profits come from licensing games for it and Xbox Live subscriptions. I understand wanting things for free but it is just unrealistic. We live in a sucky world where we have to work and make money for the things we want. As much as we might want to live in a digital paradise where everyone does everything for us with no thought of payment, that just is not how the world works. It is a matter of determining whether a given game, object, or service is worth the money asked for it. If it isn't then you don't get to have it.

 

[Treblaine]

If Microsoft want to make more money they need to copy the Steam model.

Let people link their credit-card DIRECTLY to their account and make it literally a 2-set process to buy a game. But more than that, COMBINE it with huge sales. I mean things like 33% off, 50% off, even 75% off. When valve cut 75% off the cost of the game, sales increase so much they rake in 15 times as much money!!! That's not 15x as much sales, that is 15 times as much money, actual cold hard cash in the bank!

Also Microsoft needs to give you more reason to be logged in all the time.

Right now XBL Gold Membership is too expensive for what it offers. Twitter and facebook integration are not enough, EVERYTHING does that now, it needs to draw on what only it has: a community of gamers.

Microsoft gets $60 per user per year, they need to invest at least half of that in the INFRASTRUCTURE of XBL to hope in growing much more.

Because integration of twitter/Facebook/netflix and so on cost nothing for Microsoft to run and are available on any PC anyway, why pay $60 per year for that privilege?!?

They need something basically beyond what the likes of Steam offers and beyond what Steam even could offer due to the infrastructure costs. I don't know what they can do, TBH, when so many other companies offer so much more for zero fee:
-unlimited uploads/downloads via Youtube
-deep player network (PSN though Steam may be a better example)
-Content delivery already provided via Hulu, Netflix, iPlayer, etc

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Never ever going to happen. If they thought they would make more money with a different system they would already be using it. Big companies like Microsoft are much better at making obscene amounts of money than you. Although I don't like the MS business model. 60 a year is too much for just social networking and gaming online since neither incur any real costs to Microsoft.

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

How about, instead of EVERYTHING being bought wih Gamerscore, only avatar items were. They serve no real purpose, they're purely cosmetic. And as far as I know, they're created by Microsoft, so developers aren't losing out.

This is actually a good idea. I personally think that paying for avatar items is just stupid but unlocking the avatar awards is kind of cool. Making gamerscore the only currency for everything just wouldn't work, though. What could work is if Microsoft gave out bonus MS points at certain gamerscore milestones. Like say when you get to 10,000G you get 400MSP to spend and then maybe 800MSP when you get to 25,000G. Fairly small rewards that can only be earned once and require a fair amount of dedication as well as purchasing of games (more money for MS, everyone wins!). Or we could go back to the avatar items and maybe you get some special item that can only be unlocked with so much gamerscore; any sort of reward would be a nice incentive that gives some meaning to that arbitrary number.

i suggest this: people with gold membership could use their score to get discounts, while free members--like myself--have to pay full price

This could also work: the higher your gamerscore, the higher the discount you get. They'd probably have to stick with fairly small discounts but you still have to invest money in games to get gamerscore so it could actually be quite profitable for MS to do something like this.

 

[Madman123456]

Games would take a long time to come out. People would test it thoroughly to determine if the end mission achievement is harder or easier to get then the end mission achievement of this other completely different game. Games would have to be patched to make this and that achievement harder or easier to get. Every single achievement in every single game would have to be patched.

The 100 pidgeons achievements in GTA4 is easier to get then the 300 nirnroot thingy in Oblivion. OMG!

All in all, i see some flaws in this idea.

 

[Les Awesome]

and we can pay for our college educations and mortgages with gamerscore
oh huzzah

 

[Naeo]

Doing this would require two possible changes to make it work:
1. Eliminate major DLCs that add more than minor new areas/items or DLCs that require a large amount of work from devs.

2. Jack the price of the game way up at purchase.

DLC is a way for both Microsoft and the devs to make money above and beyond the game itself, and neither group is willing to sacrifice an extra source of revenue because gamers don't want to pay for it. However, I do like the idea of gamerscore being something to use for minor DLC unlockables--a new gun, a new piece of armour, a new level, etc. I think that that could be used very well--it both lets gamers who can't or don't want to pay for larger DLC to still get free stuff that has a measurable effect in game beyond aesthetics, it wouldn't require a lot of work from the devs to add small things like a new gun or whatnot compared to adding a larger DLC package and so money wouldn't be as much an issue, and on the dev side it acts as a bait of sorts for people to see what kind of things might be available in DLC and potentially get more people to buy it.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

What you're proposing is stupid, wouldn't work and would piss off people who want something but don't play Xbox as much as some, like myself. I basically only play it when a game doesn't come out on PC.

What would be a neat idea is if you got a percentage, 10% say, of your gamerscore as MS points. Think about it, you complete a game, get 100 MS points and can use that to buy the DLC.

 

[pretentiousname01]

I already work for my money

I don't want to have to start sifting through shitty games to make money to buy dlc.

The one idea of merit out of it was avatar awards. I wouldn't mind seeing a gs threshold for items. However they would be items specifically made for it. Like 10,000 gs get a hat, 15000 get a shirt etc.

This already happens to an extent. Avatar awards.
Meed certain requirements in game = free avatar items.

truth, however much to my dismay they don't happen often enough

 

[Professor James]

I don't think it would work. Mainly because you'd be using Gamerscore to pay for DLC, and developers wouldn't want that, so they come up with some other form of currency. But ALL developers would create a different currency, so the whole thing becomes a shambles.

How about, instead of EVERYTHING being bought wih Gamerscore, only avatar items were. They serve no real purpose, they're purely cosmetic. And as far as I know, they're created by Microsoft, so developers aren't losing out.

This

Avatar stuff are the only thing that should be bought with Microsoft points. Who the hell buys virtual clothes using real money anyway.

 

[Dango]

I don't see how developers would profit, and this would suck for anyone isn't a hardcore gamer.